Love: Minor Advances in Equipment

From a teleconference to plug something...

Q. Given how well you played that week in '97 and knowing what you do about some of the changes they've made to that golf course, do you imagine that anyone would come close to 11-under par if that golf course is firm the week of the U.S. Open?

DAVIS LOVE III: I doubt -- if you went back and played the same course again, it would be hard to get to that score. I think Justin and I got kind of on a roll there and were pushing each other. It would probably take a similar situation, two guys playing well and leaving the field and focusing on each other, pushing each other. Sometimes you see that, that two guys will separate themselves, feel like they're chasing the rabbit a little bit and getting away.

But I would doubt it. It sounds like the course, from what I've heard from amateurs that have played there in the invitational, is extremely hard. We have to prepare ourselves for that in most majors now, that it just gets harder and harder, gets more difficult. With the minor advances we've gained in equipment, the golf courses are certainly more than making up for that.

Minor?

Monty Calls For Ball Limits

Monty saw the new-look Wentworth, and decided it's time to do something about the ball. And for that, he joins The List of noted figures in golf who have made similar calls in the last few years. 

From a BBC interview today:

"The ball's going further and further - changes like this are almost demanded.

"I wish we could control the length of the golf ball and it would save this happening," he told Radio Five Live.

Els has also added 30 bunkers to the course, and Montgomerie said the changes were inevitable.

"It had to be done - the new owners wanted 300 yards on it, Ernie did and I think we all did," added Montgomerie.

"It's a shame in many ways because it has changed the course, but then again it's been very well done.

And this...

"We can't keep on borrowing land from people's gardens around the Wentworth estate - the easy option is to change the golf ball to make it go less far, to put a speed limit on it if you like.

"That's what we need to do but obviously the manufacturers haven't got together to make that possible."

Haven't gotten together to make that possible. Who said Monty has no sense of humor!

A Real Moral Dilemma

In a Scotsman story on Chinese counterfeit golf clubs, Stuart Keith, who studied the problem for a University of Edinburgh dissertation, says there is a "moral dilemma for British consumers" who buy counterfeits

Perhaps of more immediate concern to British golfers, counterfeiting discourages innovation, a blow to handicappers waiting for breakthroughs in golf club technology.

"Sure, a lot of prices for major- brand golf clubs are inflated, but the companies have to be repaid for their innovation otherwise there is no incentive to continue to bring new and better products to the marketplace," Mr Keith said.

Sure, they are overcharging, but it's your job to help pay for the next club as well! 

Nicklaus Would Redesign For Ball Rollback In "Half Second"

Boy I'm losing it. This was a post I forgot to publish from Sunday, which would help explain the "Nick-enzie" reference (Jack's, not mine!).

Rich Radford reports on the opening of the 7,417 yard Jack Nicklaus-designed Bay Creek Resort and Club in Virginia. course a few interesting comments from the Bear...

On technology...

He rails against it, wishes the United States Golf Association would reel in the technological growth, hopes that it happens soon. He went so far as to say that if the USGA cut back ball flight by 15 percent, he’d be back to redesign his Bay Creek course “in a half a second.”

On the Ohio State redo...

Ohio State asked if he could give the campus course, which was originally designed by Alister Mackenzie, a face-lift. Nicklaus calls the new Ohio State course “a Nick-enzie design.”

Huggan On State of Euro Tour, Monty

John Huggan wonders if recent European Tour happenings are hurting the Tour. Starting with the weird Irish Open antics this week.

Then there was Thursday's opening round of the Irish Open at the Colin Montgomerie-designed Carton House. Serious questions need to be asked at European Tour headquarters about a venue whose topography is so flawed that a bit of wind is enough to provoke suspension of play. On a proper course - one where the 'architect' pays appropriate attention to the prevailing meteorological conditions in an area that he visits more than a handful of times - these sorts of things don't happen.

Or, at least, they don't on courses where the greens are built to receive good shots rather than to repel them. Witness the third round of the Open Championship at Muirfield in 2002. In squally weather that was a million times worse than we saw three days ago, the world's best course was certainly difficult, but remained playable - although it was sometimes hard to ascertain that fact, so loud was the squealing from various competitors. Equally, it is hard to imagine golfers being asked to leave the premises at one of Ireland's premier links, say Portmarnock, when the breeze rises to no more than a little gusty.

And he quotes a player, who isn't too keen on the quality of events or fields:

None of the above nonsense is, of course, helping the European Tour at a time when pressure from its main competitor, America's PGA Tour, has never been so intense. Nor will it change the view of at least one well-respected Ryder Cup player that the quality of the product is slipping.

"One of the great myths on the European Tour is that the standard of play is rising every year," he says. "You hear guys saying stuff like: 'Yes, I have to keep improving just to stand still.'

"What a load of rubbish. The real truth is that, apart from the few really top-class events we have each year, tournaments like the BMW Championship at Wentworth, the general quality of the fields week-to-week is falling. Which makes sense if you are paying attention. Look at the number of top guys who have disappeared off to the PGA Tour over the last five years or so. Not just Europeans, but Australians too.

"The harsh truth is that, if you are any good at all, the European Tour represents increasingly easy pickings."

Huggan also looks at Monty's consideration of the two-driver strategy:

Speaking of Monty, the eight-time European No.1 - good job Tiger's winnings are ruled ineligible by his failure to compete in 11 counting events! - is apparently considering following Phil Mickelson's lead and carrying two drivers, one for fading, the other for drawing.

While this nonsense is a logical extension of the distances that the leading players now hit the apparently turbo-charged ball with their turbo-charged clubs - who needs a 3- or 4-iron after a 330-yard drive? - it is also more than a little depressing. Rather than a game of skill and technique, golf is turning into a mere test of power. Purchasing power, that is.

Let me see, shall I buy a hook or a slice today? Shot-makers of the past, men like Ben Hogan who viewed golf as an art rather than a science, must be spinning wildly in their final resting places.

Coltart: "Golf has so little culture today"

John Huggan catches up with Andrew Coltart, who has plenty to say about the state of the game. My kind of rant:

"The explosion in distance that has come with the new clubs and balls over the last few years has hurt players like me. I can't comprehend how far some guys hit the ball now. It used to be that the wide, erratic hitter was punished, but that is not the case any more. Not as much anyway."

Underlining the sad truth that golf at the elite level is now more about power than pure skill is the fact that Coltart's average drive has stretched by more than 15 yards since he battled Tiger Woods at Brookline in 1999. As he has grown more powerful, however, many of his fellow competitors have exploded past him, encouraged by the lack of due diligence shown by golf's administrators when it comes to equipment.

"Courses on tour today are set up to encourage players to bomb away off the tee," claims Coltart. "Which is admittedly exciting, especially for the less sophisticated spectator or viewer. But it doesn't help guys like me, those whose games are built around accuracy.

"Then there are the sprinkler systems courses tend to have in the fairways, but not anywhere else. The water runs off into the first couple of yards of rough. That grass gets thick in a hurry. But ten yards further out, the rough isn't nearly as lush. So the bombers get more encouragement. They get to hit from relatively sparse rough and they are 60 yards closer to the green.

"Also, greens are generally too soft. So the big hitters are able to 'plug' wedges and 9-irons in there. In contrast, hard and fast greens would encourage a bit more thinking, and make the game a bit more strategic. But playing for position never enters the long driver's head these days. Every hole is a 'wellie' off the tee, and a gouge from the rough. I see so many guys making birdies from the long grass and the trees - because they are so close to the green after the drive. It's mind-blowing."

Coltart is not only concerned with the negative effect all of the above has had on his career. Unlike so many others, he recognises the wider and longer-term implications for golf.

"I think the game has diminished over the last decade or so," he says with a shake of the head. "Shot-making and shaping have all but gone. Round the greens we all play the same boring lob shot with our 60-degree wedges. Golf today is a lot like tennis. They stand up there and it is 'smash' 15-love, 'smash' 30-love and 'smash' 40-love.

"But few people are watching that. Instead, they are looking at the clock that says the ball was hit at 150mph or whatever. Now, golf is all about the 350-yard drive. There have apparently been 881 drives longer than that on the PGA Tour so far this year. Success is measured on distance from the tee rather than tournaments won. It's a circus.

"The mass appeal of distance has overtaken any other approach to the game. Golf has so little culture today. It was great when Seve was playing the way he did. He was artistic. Where is the artistry now? There is no artistry. Or feel. Ask a young guy to hit a little knock-down shot into a green, and he a) doesn't know how, and b) wonders why he should bother. It's depressing.

"I never see guys holding shots up against the wind. The money has a lot to do with that. They figure they can go for the flag every week. When they are on, they will shoot eight under par and win a huge cheque. And when they are off, well, there is always next week.

"If they were baseball players, they would all be home-run hitters who strike out a lot."

Scott: "They've got to build courses and set them up to how the equipment is"

Adam Scott, after round one of the Byron Nelson:

Q. Some of the clubs you hit in are staggering from the clubs of a few years ago people hit in here. Lob wedge at No. 8, which is 457; 5 wood, sand wedge at 9. There was another staggering 7 iron at 16; pitching wedge at 18

ADAM SCOTT: Well, it was windy today, too. I mean, they were probably the downwind holes. It was windy, but yeah, the ball is going a long way and the courses are getting short. Like 450 is no big deal for a par 4 at all; even if it's not windy you're going to hit a short iron in. That's just the way the game is. You've got to take advantage of it if you can hit it out there.

Q. How do you feel about 450 yard holes now being sand wedge holes?

ADAM SCOTT: Well, I mean, that's how long they've got to be for us to have them a little tricky. It's tough, they've got to build courses and set them up to how the equipment is. For the Tour, anyway, they need to because that's I think the pros get the real advantage out of the equipment. We find 20 yards somehow, every year it seems.

The All Weather Ball?

Thanks to reader Steven for this John Davis story on Arizona State researchers using aircraft science to improve golf ball design.

Using some of the most advanced mathematical modeling methods, high-performance computing systems and three-dimensional visualization techniques, the researchers hope to create balls that not only can fly farther and straighter, but might cost less.

Kyle Squires and Dan Stanzione are heading up the project that uses state-of-the-art scientific methods and equipment that only "techies" could understand, but "farther, straighter and cheaper" need no translation for the average golfer.

"The idea is to apply the same principles of airflow around an aircraft to come up with a golf ball that will perform more efficiently," Squires said.

"What I would like to do at some point is show a ball design that would perform the best at the FBR Open, for example, because it would take into account climate, weather, air density and other conditions."

Think of the shopping possibilities!

The project started last fall when Srixon technicians read about studies the ASU engineers were doing on airflow around fighter jets and other aircraft for the U.S. Department of Defense and wondered if it could be applied to golf balls.

Srixon officials were able to view the early test results during the FBR Open at Decision Theater, a state-of-the-art three-dimensional visualization laboratory.

Ping has asked the researchers to do similar studies on golf clubs, particularly large-headed drivers, and determine if certain designs will cut through the air more effectively and allow for faster club-head speed.

Davis lists the possible "benefits" of this vital, life changing research:

-A golfer could use the same ball, but with a slightly different cover design, that would provide maximum distance in cold, dry conditions or hot, humid conditions.

- A ball could be designed that would sacrifice some distance but fly straighter because spin rates would be reduced.

- Ball manufacturers could save thousands of dollars in research, manufacturing and testing by using the "virtual manufacturing" done on the ASU computers.

"Whether they would pass that on to consumers would be their call," Squires said, "but it would eliminate building prototypes and field testing them. They would have all that information upfront."

Feherty Advocates Ball Change

Ron Green Jr. in the Charlotte Observer talks to David Feherty, who talks about Tiger, how technology is not hurting the game, and what he'd do if he were Commissioner for a day:

Q. If you had Tim Finchem's job and could change one thing, what would it be? I would change the size of the ball. I'd make it .02 bigger. With one fell swoop you would cure a bunch of problems. The ball wouldn't go as far. It would spin. It would be harder to hit straight. It would be harder to hit far. It would be very slightly harder to get in the hole.

On the upside you'd bring a lot of old courses back into relevance.

It also sits up nicely around the greens. The amateur player has more fun playing with it. I grew up with the 1.62 (ball) and I remember changing to the 1.68 and thinking, wow, this is so much more fun playing with this ball.

For the high handicapper, those shots around the greens are difficult. When the ball is a little bigger, it makes such a difference. There's more of it to get underneath.

We've done it once before. I don't see a reason not to do it again.

I've added Feherty to the list of those who advocate something be done to de-emphasize distance in the game today. He's in good company!

USA Today On Distance Myths, Readers React...Sort Of

Jerry Potter and Tom Spousta of the USA Today do their best Judith Miller imitation by wheeling out the USGA's Distance Myth press release...as if they came up with this propaganda on their own! That's right, instead of noting that the "myths" came to them as a release, they report having "consulted" with the USGA's Dick Rugge.

The USA Today: all the prepackaged news that's fit to regurgitate.

Anyhow, they follow up their myth "research" with more hard hitting reporting, this time calling on Rugge and Wally Uihlein to fill up most of a story about what was supposed to be reader feedback on distance regulation, titled "Readers Decide It Must Be The Ball." In the story, we hear from a whopping three readers, with two saying the ball needs to be rolled back.

But first some really, like, you know, like really heavy discussion of the meaning of myth.

The power of myth has long been a steadying influence for people, allowing them to believe what they want to believe often when it flies in the face of scientific evidence.

"In most cases when there is a myth," says Wally Uihlein, chairman and CEO of Acushnet Company, which makes Titleist golf balls, "there is a symbol of something that can't speak for itself. It's assigned supernatural power."

Like a golf ball.

Ah yes, the poor, picked on golf ball! We're all delusional! It's the agronomy, it's the ster...sorry, continue.

To the question posed last week about lengthening courses or reining in technology to combat the game's long bombers, many readers zoned in on the ball.

"I am completely in favor of reining in the distance a golf ball travels by adopting standards for the ball and the club," responded Timothy W. Broos of Dixon, Ill. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with a 275-yard drive being impressive and a 440-yard par-4 being long."

Fred Daum, the retired golf coach at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., wrote in an e-mail that "it's a no-brainer" to rein in equipment because it's destroying the traditional venues for the game, and its past heroes. He laid the blame on the U.S. Golf Association for not controlling technology.

Well, enough of those pesky readers! 

Dick Rugge, the USGA's senior technical director, gets similar e-mail at his headquarters in Far Hills, N.J., but he says, "We don't believe the ball needs to be changed at this time."

Yes, we kind of got that from the distance myths memo.

Uihlein says there always have been periods when technological advancements stirred concern and brought predictions of ruin. That included changes in the construction of the golf ball and golf clubs, made possible by new materials and production processes.

"There was a similar noise level when Sam Snead and Ben Hogan became prominent (in the late 1930s)," Uihlein says, "and were hitting the ball long distances. That was a time when we went from hickory shafts to steel shafts."

You know, I've looked through a lot of old golf magazines in the late 1930s, and it's kind of hard to even find Ben Hogan's name mentioned, much less stories about technology impacting the game. And actually, all of the late 20s and early 30s talk centered around the ball, not the clubs. Ah how times haven't changed.

"If we only made rules only for the Tour," Rugge says, "our job would be easy. We make the rules for the 28 million people who don't play professional golf."

Most are amateurs with double-digit handicaps, and they don't drive the ball 300 yards.

"People say, 'Roll back the ball 10%,' " Rugge says. "If you do that, then a guy hitting the ball 300 yards off the tee will be hitting it 270. But someone hitting it 200 will be at 180."

Rugge added that a blanket reduction wouldn't even be good for all Tour players.

Oh right, because long hitters don't get a disproportionate boost from today's equipment. I forgot.

Uihlein says distance is a factor of more things that just the ball. It's the club; it's the course conditions; it's club fitting; it's the athleticism of the players.

"You don't control the athleticism of the players," he says.

Well, a little steroid testing wouldn't hurt.

"Technology," Uihlein says, "has had a democratizing effect on golf. Without it we'd have far fewer people playing golf. One thing we know: As long as people believe they can play better, they continue to play. When they don't think that, they quit."

Ah...now, I wonder if there are "facts" to support the claim that people would play less if they had less frequent shopping opportunities? Or is corporate pro-technology bias?

And remember, as long as the illusion of getting better through purchasing power exists, they'll keep playing. Now that is touching.

Hey, but at least one reader chimed in on the good side:

Joshua Reynolds of Lee's Summit, Mo., agrees: "For those of us who can't cream the ball 330 yards, we need the extra distance. ... 'Dear USGA & PGA. Please let the average Joe enjoy his round of golf with whatever ball he wants to play."

Send that man a dozen Srixon's!

Arron on Spin

Arron Oberholser talked about Winged Foot and technology prior to the Wachovia Championship:

Q. I talked to you a little bit at Sawgrass about it, but what are your memories about that one round at Winged Foot? What did you come away with?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I'll tell you what, I've heard that they've added about 200 yards to the golf course since when I played it. It's like 7,300 yards now. It used to play like 7,100, just over 7,000. I was playing a wound ball back then with a steel headed driver, and I think the golf course is going to play a lot different now.

I remember having to work your golf ball off the tees out there and being able to do that with the old equipment. With the newer equipment it's kind of stand up and aim and bomb it.

I remember the greens being I remember it being a good test of golf, short par 4s, long par 4s, flat lies, uneven lies, short par 3s. 10 is that really good par 3. You don't get to start on a par 3 a lot, and it's kind of cool actually, I think.

And, a few minutes later, this follow up was asked:

Q. You seemed to suggest that maybe new technology can be a detriment because you can't shape the ball around some of those fairways.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I think on certain holes in certain situations I think new technology can be a detriment. You're always guessing, well, if I make the swing that I want to make, is the ball going to hook enough, is the ball going to fade enough, or is the ball just going to kind of fly straight. So it's not a question of getting the ball to do what you want, it's getting the ball to do what you want enough because the balls all kind of you don't produce as much spin as you used to. Obviously anybody who understands the golf swing in physics, you've got to produce spin to make the ball curve. If you don't produce, you're not going to make it curve.

"I don't get much roll anyway"

The Times-Picayune's Fred Robinson offered a few interesting bits related to the myth of distance in the game today, starting with this from Bubba Watson.

And when Watson, the longest driver on the PGA Tour, tees it up today in the first round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, he knows long drives on the rain-soaked English Turn golf course could lead to low scores.

"It'll help me because it's wet and you're not going to get much roll," said Watson, who is averaging 318.5 yards on drives, nearly eight yards more than J.B. Holmes, the second-longest driver on tour. "I fly the ball, and I don't get much roll anyway."

Huh, and here I thought it was all athleticism and roll.

And this....

David Toms, whose 22-under-par 266 score won at English Turn in 2001, said distance is a factor, but so is experience.

"Certainly, I'd like to have 20 more yards," Toms said. "I don't know if it would be good to have 60 or 70 more yards."

When Toms turned pro in 1989, he said he was driving the ball about 269 yards. Today, his average is up to 285.5 yards and is tied for 102nd in driving distance. Much of it, he said, is due to ball and club technology.

"It's more of a power game today," Toms said Wednesday. "Most of the guys who do well on the tour are pretty powerful players. They don't have to be tops in driving distance, but I think that they have the ability to overpower golf courses."

Get this man a copy of the Distance Myths memo. Oh, we better get one to Robinson too...

In 11 of the 17 tour events this season, the winners averaged at least 290 yards off the tee. Five times the winner's average drive was more than 300 yards.

More MOI

E. Michael Johnson and Mike Stachura analyze the USGA's decision on "MOI" and what it means for all types of golfers.

Two Driver Debate, Part II

A reader who is a respected national golf writer had this to say about Phil and his two driver concept:

Mickelson using two drivers and one swing supports the argument against technology. It used to be that tour players had to learn to work the ball either way and many were unable to do so with any degree of consistency. Those that could had an advantage. In other words, it's a lost skill, since you can just carry two drivers and let the club work it for you.

In his Golfonline column, Peter Kostis writes:

It used to be that players carried a standard set that included a couple of woods, the standard number of irons plus a pitching and sand wedge. Whatever shots they could hit with that set were the shots they had to play. But today’s player is different. They see a shot that is required and then get their club maker to produce a club that will let them hit that shot. Can you say 60° wedge, hybrid iron, 7-wood, 9-wood or gap wedge? When players saw Tiger’s 2-iron fly driver distance with 7-iron trajectory, they knew they had to do something!

Going forward, I think we will see more and more players looking at the courses they are about to play and thinking about what shots they’ll need to hit. Then, based on their needs, players will put clubs in their bag that will allow them to hit the necessary shots without changing the way they swing. Develop a repeatable swing, and let the equipment adjust the shot.'

I'm still finding myself seeing both sides to this argument. Though when it was revealed (by Phil) that one driver gave him a 25-yard turbo boost, somehow the concept seemed less like something reverting back to the days of the brassie, and more like a strange symptom of the launch monitor.

Thoughts? 

Offended By Big Hitters?

I received a complaint from someone who said my recent Golfobserver.com column on Hootie was unfair. Why? Because this well-meaning soul said that Hootie shares the same feeling about the distance issue as folks like myself.

But actually there is a big difference. Well, several. First, most of us who like classic golf courses wouldn't hire Tom Fazio to mow them, much less alter them based on his track record.

But the primary point relates to something Olin Browne touched on in Rex Hoggard's Golfweek.com column:

"The powers that be have become offended by the big hitters."

This view came through loud and clear in Hootie's press conference ("If Hogan were hitting a damn pitching wedge.."). His anger over the situation is directed at the players, almost as if this were baseball and he was having to deal with juiced players.

But as comedian Robert Wuhl pointed out a few weeks ago, in golf the equipment is juiced, not the players.

Hootie and those trying to offset eye-opening driving distances need to direct their frustration toward the governing bodies, not the players or even course designers.

The "big hitters" and manufacturers are simply doing what they are allowed under the rules.

The rulemakers--many of them members at Augusta National--are the ones who have let the game down.